Appliance Installation & Repair

The basics for home and business owners ...

What You Should Know About Appliance Installation and Repair

What are the specific requirements — including licensing and permits — for installing or repairing common household
appliances? Here are the most common questions — and their answers — homeowners have about appliance installation and repair requirements.

A household appliance is equipment installed in a dwelling unit that is built to standardized sizes or types and is installed or connected as a unit to perform one or more functions, such as cooking and other equipment installed in a kitchen, clothes drying, clothes washing, portable room air conditioning units and portable heaters (not exceeding 250 volt, 60 amps, single phase).

Fixed-in-place, permanently-connected heating and cooling equipment such as furnaces, heat pumps and air conditioners are not household appliances.

A cord-and-plug (101 KB PDF)-connected appliance has a cord with a molded plug that was either factory or field installed on the appliance. The appliance is then ready to be plugged in to a receptacle in the location where it is permanently installed.

A hard-wired (101 KB PDF) appliance is one where the building wiring method attaches to the appliance in a more permanent fashion. This will involve splicing of wires inside the appliance.

If your electrical contractor and/or electrician
sent to your home is licensed by L&I, then they will show up in our database. Our public website allows anyone to search our database by the electrical contractor's name or electrician's name. The search engine will allow you to narrow your search to certain areas of the state. Look
up a contractor or electrician.

"Like in kind" means having similar characteristics such as voltage requirements, current draw, circuit overcurrent and short circuit characteristics and function within the system, and being in the same location. "Like in kind" also includes any equipment component authorized by the manufacturer as a suitable component replacement part.